IE8's final step
Software giant Microsoft yesterday took one step closer to the release of Internet Explorer 8 with the release of a near-final "release candidate" of its new Internet browser.
Late yesterday the company made the release candidate version available on on its download site.
The release comes as Microsoft is facing new legal action in the European Union over its alleged anti-competitive behaviour and suggestions that the EU may try and force Microsoft to include other browsers in its Windows operating system.
Among a host of new features in the new browser, Internet Explorer 8 importantly includes protections against what is commonly known as clickjacking. The ability for malicious parties to intercept a user’s clicks and re-direct them to malicious sites first surfaced last year and affected all browsers as well as Adobe’s PDF software.
Also included in the IE8 RC1 release is the InPrivate browsing mode which allows users to hide all traces of where they have been on the Internet.
Competition
Microsoft’s Internet explorer is still the dominant web browser on the Internet but has increasingly come under attack from a range of new rivals such as Google’s Chrome browser and the ever-improving Firefox browser. Microsoft is hoping that version 8 of Internet Explorer will help it regain some of the losses it has incurred over the past few years. And it is hoping to do this with a host of new security features as well as functions aimed at mimicking the success of other browsers. Chief among those is the new "add-ons" feature – called accelerators and web slices – which is intended to add the customisation capabilities that have attracted so many users to the Firefox browser.
Although a final release date for Internet Explorer 8 has not yet been set, it is expected to be very soon. The final release is expected to be almost identical to the current release candidate version.
Internet Explorer 8 will run on Windows XP with service pack 2 and Windows Vista. A separate version of IE8 is planned for Windows 7.
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